“No good? Yes there will too!” answered Joseph Joy, who was fond of contradiction. “All these bare-necked, bare-armed, and bare-legged people will get the pleurisy and be laid on the flat of their backs for three months, when they will have the opportunity of meditating on the iniquity of their ways! And won’t that be good?”
“Yes, it will; and I hope it will be sanctified to their souls,” sighed Miss Tabitha.
“And now here comes another bogie! Gentleman, or lady, please?” politely inquired the usher, as a red domino approached.
“Lady,” softly murmured the domino.
“Pass the lady on to your maids, Miss Winterose! And here’s another that certainly belongs to your department too! And another, and another, and a whole dozen of them!” exclaimed Mr. Joy, as a troupe of bayaderes, gipsies, peasants, court ladies, et cætera, filed up.
All these Miss Winterose passed on to Delia, with directions to show them to the ladies’ dressing-rooms. And then she turned to Mr. Joy with a deep sigh, whimpering:
“Ah! Joseph, where do all these people expect to die when they go to? I—I mean, to go to when they die?”
“They don’t trouble themselves about that, I reckon,” said contradictory Joe.
“Ah! but it is written that we shall not make to ourselves the likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. And here are all these people making of themselves—” Miss Tabby stopped and snivelled, and then stopped again to wipe a tear from the tip of her nose.
“Well, what?” demanded antagonistic Joe. “What are these people making of themselves? Nothing that breaks the first commandment, for surely you don’t mean to say that they make of themselves the image of anything in the heavens above, the earth below, or the waters under the earth, do you?”